Nocturne: Art at Night attracts estimated 30,000 people

Kristin Langille performs with Halifax Circus during a show at St. Matthew’s United Church at Nocturne on Saturday night. (RYAN TAPLIN / Staff)

An early evening rain threatened to thwart Nocturne: Art at Night, but by 8 p.m. the rain had stopped, a sliver of moon was glowing in a star-filled sky and hundreds were lined up on Citadel Hill in Halifax to ride Anna Sprague’s Ferris Wheel.

Organizers estimate that 30,000 people came out for the eighth art-at-night festival, co-ordinator Kim Farmer said.

Among the most popular projects, she said, were the Ferris Wheel, Echoes performed in the Halifax Central Library by Dalhousie music students, Sun Ship Machine Gun by William Robinson, Digital Shrine at Camp Hill Cemetery by Sharon Stevens, Friend to be Found by Jason Skinner and the Printing House, and Letterpress Gang by the Dawson Printshop.

The Ferris Wheel was most gorgeous in its blazing multicoloured lights when viewed from the ground. The actual riding experience was unusual as NSCAD University students “performed” as characters inside the buckets and sometimes only one person could go at a time. My student, Brent, had stickers all over his face and handed me an Uglydoll stuffy and said he was colonizing Citadel Hill.

“I can’t make out a word she’s saying,” was overheard at Rebecca Parent’s admirable, Irish-accented six-hour performance of Molly Bloom’s soliloquy, presented by 2b theatre with beautiful purple projections not far from Jeremy Tsang’s The Beacon in the Dark, a giant cloth lighthouse that also turned purple.

“I don’t understand what it’s about” was overheard at the Sobey Art Award exhibit at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, where Mi’kmaq artist Alan Syliboy worked on a collaborative mural.

People thronged to the Halifax-Dartmouth ferry for Ferry-oke! a fun, crowd-pleasing activity embraced by Nocturners who danced along and sang the chorus to numbers like — and this comes as no surprise to anyone who has ever suffered through pub night karaoke contests — Sweet Caroline.

The beauty in Nocturne is the one unexpected thing, the one moment of magic. For me, it was tramping all over downtown Dartmouth in the spooky dark to finally find Lindsay Dobbin’s Drum Voices, a glowing yurt on top of the highest hill of the Dartmouth Common. With primal soulful sounds and a view both across to the city lights and up to the open sky, it was a sublime experience. And, in fact, it was well-marked in a zigzagging goat trail of solar lights if you came at it the right way.

There was a lovely range of experience this year. You could go from the solemnity of leaving a note to a deceased beloved — as well as reading a thank you to Alexander Keith for “the recipe” — at Digital Shrine to the wild energy of Sobey Art Award finalist Lisa Lipton’s packed-out Hoop Dreams with basketball players, cheerleaders and young women fiercely drumming at the Citadel High School gym. Nearby at the Pavilion, film workers demonstrated what the film tax credit cut has meant by freezing all action by actors and crew on a film set during a fictional busy shoot.

“We were so happy to see the crowds of people out and about, along Barrington Street, the waterfront and up and down Spring Garden Road,” Farmer said. “For venues, the new Central Library was a superstar.”

Nocturne has an economic spinoff for the downtown, she said.

“Quite a few more businesses — like bars and restaurants and coffee shops — kept their doors open later, and had Nocturne specials.”